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walterbyrd writes "Linux magazine has up a decent article comparing Gutsy Gibbon to Leopard. 'The stereotype for each OS is well known: Mac OS X is elegant, easy-to-use, and intuitive, while Ubuntu is stable, secure, and getting better all the time. Both have come a long way in a short time, and both make excellent desktops. So we have two great desktop operating systems out at roughly the same time. Let's see how they stack up against each other.'"

"Leopard is an Open Brand UNIX 03 Registered Product, conforming to the SUSv3 and POSIX 1003.1 specifications for the C API, Shell Utilities, and Threads. Since Leopard can compile and run all your existing UNIX code, you can deploy it in environments that demand full conformance -- complete with hooks to maintain compatibility with existing software."

For linux, technically speaking, you are right, it isn't derived from any code that can be called 'Unix' and carries none of the certifications, and probably wouldn't pass the certifications as is. Pratically speaking, the linux kernel+GNU userspace is clearly Unix inspired and architected such that a Unix user is certainly familiar with the situation. GNU particularly makes clear the distinction (GNU's not Unix after all). Unix-inspired may be a more precise term.

OSX is to an extent the exact opposite. Technically speaking, it derives from BSD code (actual Unix code). Technically speaking, it implements the appropriate APIs and can run a program that runs on Unix. I want to say even before X11, Apple legitimately got the Unix moniker to describe their platform, but I recall there being confusing around this point. The addition of X11 out of the box makes it more complete, and less of a technicality. However, the fact of the matter is the extensive use of a non-X based graphical architecture and the almost universal situation is that NeXT derived APIs are used and required, and the underlying pieces that are true to a Unix heritage are nearly moot. A user accustomed to Unix will find OSX fundamentally different.

Technically speaking, OSX has a valid claim to being Unix, but could be accused of not necessarily being true to the 'spirit' of Unix. Linux is absolutely not a Unix, but on the other hand, people can certainly fairly claim Linux to being true to the spirit of Unix.

I don't know about that. While I would consider Mac OS acceptably stable for my day-to-day work, I would never say that "stability" was one of its prime advantages. My Mac is generally acceptable, but I've have several crashes and other stability issues with both 10.3 and 10.4 (they might have fixed things with 10.5, but I've heard some horror stories). By contrast, I don't seem to ever have any issues with my XP machine.

I had the same problem, and what you might want to try (if you're not too invested in Etch at this point) is checking what X thinks your video pci channel is. There are several cases where the port is automisconfigured as either one lower or higher than what you really want. This is especially comman with SLI cards where in theory both channels -DO- lead to a video card but only one is going to interpret the data.

You can use the LSPCI command to check to see where the video data should be going, and you can use

Funny, I had the exact opposite experience because edgy wouldn't recognize my hardware but the newer installer in gutsy would. By the way, if it's the graphical installer giving you trouble you can install it using the alternate CD and a very debian-like text installer (which also offers more advanced options not possible in the GUI install). I guess you're just one of the few unlucky ones it doesn't work for, but for the great majority it's much friendlier. Of course if you wanted real friendly, you'd buy one with Ubuntu preinstalled.

About 20-25 years ago, there were massive debates about what was and was not "Unix". The means chosen to settle this (since it wasn't quite clear who to invite to the duel:-) was to develop a set of standards that would capture 'Unix' -to ensure application portability-. To avoid the trademark wars of that generation, the name chosen was POSIX (Portable Operating System Interface based on uniX) After much work, a bunch of standards were produced, including one covering the API, another covering common shell and utilities, RT unix, PThreads, etc, etc. (In this era of success for the Open Source movement, it's worth nothing that the concentration back then was on source code portability. It's hard for me to imagine the growth of the OSS movement without having this standard source code API to build much of that work on...)

The other thing that came out of this effort is a means to verify conformance. Note that word, "conformance". This is the term used in the standard, and if you want to talk about whether some operating system meets the standard, it's the word you should use, too. When you hear someone say 'compliant', you should ask them if they mean "conformance, as defined in the standard, or just some term made up by the marketing staff to confuse the buyer/user." An informed technical person will know the difference.

Conformance is rigorously defined in the standards, but I can informally summarize it this way:-- Conforming Application uses only facilities within the standard.-- A Conforming Implementation implements the whole standard (no subsets, unless allowed by the standard!).

From the POSIX effort and X/Open merged activities, there's a "Single Unix Specification", which is a proper superset of the POSIX standards and includes facilities not formally standardized by ISO. The Open Group (http://www.opengroup.org) both maintains the SUS and conducts a certification program against the specification.

It is good to see Apple go through this and pass (apparently Apple tried earlier and hit a roadblock/inconsistency.)

So when someone -now- says "Unix" they should mean a conforming implementation of the Open Group's Single Unix Standard. That includes POSIX conformance. And it should mean that the vendor has the certificate to prove it.

Now what about Linux? Last I heard, there were still inconsistencies between Linux and the SUS, so LINUX won't pass the POSIX part of SUS, and therefore isn't legally "Unix", nor is it a POSIX Conforming Implementation. My understanding these differences aren't trivial, but are in corners that the average user won't bump into. But the differences in the API specifications does have a significant impact on the implementation (kernel), and that's why the Linux community has stuck to its incompatibility with the POSIX standard.

Mac runs on Mac hardware. Hardly what I would call a fair test to what Linux has to stand up against.

Although Macs have switched to Intel processors I bet OS X wouldn't be as easy to install on all the PC configurations that Ubuntu has to deal with which I think is a point that most people miss out on.

Even if you were comparing Gutsy to Windows, even XP doesn't have driver support for my old web cam and TV tuner card which is really out of date. Gutsy does it out of the box because the support for the third party hardware is kept there, which keeps me from having to buy new hardware just to get back what I already had after an upgrade.

Modern day BSDs including Darwin, which OSX is built on top of, do not contain any of the original AT&T code. 4.4BSD-Lite, which the big three BSDs are descendants from, contains no actual Unix code as all that was removed back as terms of the settlement.

Nope, it is almost all traceable down to the mess we love to hate known as ACPI. There's a lot to it, much I don't personally understand, but after talking with folks working on suspend/resume issues, its pretty clear that strange bits of the ACPI spec, and just how it interacts with the rest of the system, lead to a lot of suspend and resume issues. Certain drivers also help make this a mess, such as the NVidia binary driver (though I've heard its gotten better, and of course this doesn't apply to non-Linux).

I do have mod points, but chose to reply instead. You're obviously young, or your memory's gone. In 1980, MS barely existed, there was no Windows, heck, there wasn't even a DOS, and Apple was the big boy on the block. UNIX was never intended for the masses, at least at that time. You're thinking (if you're thinking at all) of Mini Computers that were things that you needed a couple of forklifts to move.

Then we get to Compaq, which didn't exist until 82, and didn't have a machine until mid-83. There were many clones out on the market by 83, as I should know since I owned a Blackship Technologies 286 clone. About the only thing you got right in this statement is the effect of the clones on the market, and the fact that Compaq had the first legally cloned BIOS. As for PC clones being cheap, well, last time I checked, $3+K in the early/mid 80s was anything but cheap.

What we really have is the following timelines:76 - 80: Apple - great computer81 - 83: IBM PC - cheaper computer with tinkerer potential83 - 87: PC Clone wars - IBM loses87 - 93: MS rises to dominance via exclusive OEM licenses with all the major clone vendors93 - 99: Dell rises. MS uses exclusive OEM licenses, purchase cycles, and 2 key upgrades to lock in a monopoly in both OS and Office97 - 99: MS uses OEM licenses to bury netscape and gain the web00 - 04: Dell peaks00 - 01: MS peaks99 - 03: Sun peaks00 - 04: Linux begins serious inroads into network infrastructure, doing menial tasks such as DNS and firewalls.03 - 05: Macs become really usable05 - --: Linux becomes a suitable candidate for the entire data center.06 - --: Macs switch to Intel, become about the best $ for performance laptops you can buy.07: MS hits a new low with Vista, opening the door for Macs and Linux07: MS screws up user interfaces with a totally new look that's received as well as news that you've won a 5 month trip to Siberia, starting in November....07: Linux, in the form of Ubuntu, actually becomes a viable competitor for the user desktop.07: OOo becomes a viable competitor for Office

This leaves out a lot, but covers some of the major players. While Compaqs were big hits with large companies that previously were used to IBM pricing and equipment restrictions, they blew big hairy chunks with the consumers that were looking for PCs. I never met a consumer that liked Compaq. I also never met a business person that liked Compaq that I really respected, it always seemed like a clone of the "you can't be fired for buying IBM" gang. (all puns intended)

So, MS really didn't do much of anything for the computing world, other than convince a lot of people they did. They did screw it over, that's a fact born out by the detritus of companies that tried to compete in an unlevel playing field. Apple did far more for computing, but it was all prior to 88, until about OSX 10.3. That's when Apple actually got back in the game.

To be honest, probably Sun and Cisco had more positive effects on the computer than any other entities, but it was all via third party additions, and not directly.

As to your last point: *nix doesn't need to find a niche, it already has one. The only thing that really needs to happen is for game developers to support it as well and the last wall will tumble like the Adobe wall in monsoon season. There's only 2 things holding people to MS right now other than marketing: games and MS Office, and the later is really more the perceived need via marketing than a real need. BTW - I work for a company that has everything running on *nix except our desktops... primarily a left over from the last sysadmin and the fact that you could only recently buy non-MS laptops commercially, excepts Macs, which we're only now starting to get. Matter of fact, my last 4 companies all run on *nix of various flavors, and none run production MS servers, with the exception of Exchange if they ran that (and I hate Notes).

You're missing the years prior to open firmware when it was quite impossible to install another operating system without having Mac OS installed first.

Well, it was actually a technical issue. Apple designed the hardware and software themselves, so of course they did not build the early Macintoshes with the thought in mind that anyone would run a different operating system on it. Later on, Apple sponsored porting Linux to the PowerPC [wikipedia.org]. People like to think that Apple is more closed than Microsoft, but that is simply ridiculous. Darwin is still open source (though there is no requirement it remain so), and so is CUPs, and Apple's KHTML improvements, etc. I'm not saying they're as open as Sun or anything, but compared to Microsoft... well, there is no comparison.

The problem is that...Intel produced the ACPI specs, and people implemented those specs into linux/bsd/etc even before there was much ACPI supporting hardware...Microsoft implemented ACPI too, but not quite according to the specs...Hardware manufacturers follow microsoft's implementation, and use microsoft's dsdt compiler etc, instead of the standard intel one. And ofcourse the specs aren't published for the broken microsoft implementation.End result is that ACPI works fairly poorly almost everywhere. If you have a laptop that still supports APM suspend on linux usually works pretty well (i always used apm suspend on my older thinkpads), modern windows no longer supports apm at all (and amusing things happen if you install ibm's apm suspend drivers on xp).

Linux (Ubuntu, Debian and Redhat, as well as many others) have a nifty little package manager where you can install a program for almost anything you can think of. Where is that feature on your Mac? The Mac may come with a number of third party tools, but they still don't do 100% of what every user wants to do with their computer. Under Linux, it's much closer to "feature complete", as far as application availability.

There's MacPorts [apple.com] and Fink [finkproject.org]. Macports uses RPMs and Fink uses "Debian tools like dpkg and apt-get". Not only can I install Mac software but I can also install many programs for BSD and Linux.